HP Bets Big On Future of Hybrid Work With $3.3 Billion Poly Buy

HP has purchased Poly, the company formerly known as Plantronics, for $3.3 billion. "HP Inc sees the future of its business as one supporting a workforce partially based at home and partially in the office, and appears to have bought office telecom giant Poly for that reason," reports The Register. From the report: Formerly known as Plantronics, Poly changed its name shortly after it acquired Polycom in 2018. HP didn't mention in its acquisition announcement whether or not it would keep the Poly brand separate, but it's still early: the deal is not expected to close until the end of the 2022 calendar year. HP described the $3.3 billion purchase ($40 per share) as a bid to refocus its portfolio on growth and take advantage of what it said is a massive growth opportunity due to the likely permanence of hybrid work.

Plantronics and Polycom have long had a considerable presence in the enterprise space, with Polycom's and Plantronics video conferencing hardware and headsets likely familiar to people in the world of work. Plantronics itself has a history reaching back to early airline headsets and the Apollo 11 mission: It's a Plantronics headset that relayed Neil Armstrong's "one small step" back to Earth. The value of peripherals like headsets hasn't declined in the years since, with HP saying the peripheral market is growing 9 percent annually and is worth $110 billion. Workforce solutions, like conference room telecom equipment, represents a $120 billion market segment that HP said is growing 8 percent yearly.

I sure hope they keep it separate

[drinkypoo]

Plantronics are the only desk phone headsets I've ever used that are worth more than one tenth of one crap. If they HP that stuff it will be a real loss.

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[FuegoFuerte]

Just wait till a sudden firmware update makes your non-genuine-hp USB cable stop working with your headset.

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[quonset]

If they HP that stuff it will be a real loss.

Considering the crap I have to put up with from HP, yes, it will be. I'm now being told that, apparently by design, their Elitebooks won't hold a charge overnight if they're left unplugged. By that I mean, we were told the charge only lasts 5 - 8 hours.

Then there's the issue of loose USB-C ports. Since they've abandoned having a built in ethernet jack on their machines, everything is connected via USB-C. Guess what happens if the port won't hold the cable in pl

Re: I sure hope they keep it separate

[NagrothAgain]

Yes, but I'd still rather wear my bluetooth over-ear headphones. And since the conferencing these days is all using something like Zoom, Webex, MS Teams, etc. I don't need dedicated conferencing gear or even a phone line.

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[drinkypoo]

Lots of people who work in offices still have a phone that looks like a phone on their desk, though today it's likely connected via Ethernet in any business with any notable number of people on headsets. Not me now, but who knows about me tomorrow? I think I actually still even have a Plantronics headset somewhere, and I know I have an antique SIP phone :)

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[Ostracus]

Big company all the way around. Polycom bought OBihai Technology Inc [wikipedia.org], the maker of my ATA. Still going strong.

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[psergiu]

Hope HP won't kill it ... I mean, my OBI box will still work as a stand-alone device but if Google updates anything on Google Voice, it'll become way less useful.

Plantronics rich history in PC

[williamyf]

Search for plantronics colorplus mode.
A very interesting read.

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[drinkypoo]

I don't think I'm seeing the same search results as you are (which should not be a surprise) because I am not seeing a "very interesting read", only some technical information about a mildly interesting PC expansion card of yesteryear. I do see that it was $300-400 though, yowza. I had a CGA card in my 286-6, later upgraded to EGA... And then weirdly, later put the CGA monitor on my Amiga with a little help from a friend. The Amiga had digital as well as analog output. I think the sync signal had to be inve

Coulda been a contenda comeback tour

[tri44id]

Years ago, HP Labs developed a telepresence conference room that makes the *Meta*verse stick figure conferencing thing look like your five-year-olds drawing that you think is so wonderful that you tape it up on the refrigerator. It was so far ahead of its time that they sold it to Polycom, who buried the solution.

Hopefully the regular headsets are enough of a cash cow that they can fund the massive software R&D that is still needed to achieve the latent potential of virtual conferencing now that PCs

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[nbvb]

That was HP Halo.

*amazing* stuff, so far ahead of its time. Part of the problem is that it was ridiculously expensive; the room buildout specs were very exacting, and it demanded dedicated IP circuits into their Halo network for connectivity, so they could ensure jitter and latency were kept to a minimum.

But as you said - it was really ahead of its time. Truly the closest to "in the room with you" I've ever seen.

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[Ostracus]

VR is the future of virtual meeting. [youtu.be]

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[Junta]

Perhaps, but as a VR enthusiast, I have to admit that I think there would be problems.

For now, the headsets aren't quite convenient, and it's a tall order to ask casual users to do it. In my very tech heavy company, I would guess *maybe* 25% of my department would be game for wearing a headset to use a headset.

Beyond comfort, there's the 'shut-out' nature of a headset that some people would object to. Being that shut out from your actual environment is very offputting for some. Off-ear speakers help on au

I hope they don't turn out like HP Calculators did

[kriston]

I surely hope they don't turn out like HP Calculators did.

Smart move, maybe a bit late though

[Arethan]

I think office workers that don't actually need to be at the office are a real thing, and companies are finally realizing and accepting that. One of the biggest groups of potentially remote workers are call center jobs, and based on my own recent call center interactions it seems they're already fully embracing this.

So yea, to me it makes sense to bet on this, and Polycom is/was an industry leader in call center equipment. I think HP is a bit late to the game on this purchase, and like many others have poin

Wasn't it Meg Whitman

[aerogems]

Who ordered everyone at HP to come back into the office, even though there weren't enough physical seats for everyone? And this was all before the pandemic.

Commodity Hardware?

[bill_mcgonigle]

I have Chinesium bluetooth headphones and an Anker portable Li+/BT/USBC conferencing speaker that work as well as Polycom hardware did 20 years ago, which was fine.

I paid $500 (in 2000 money) for Polycom hardware but $20 for my Anker (OK, it was on sale).

How old are the people running HP?

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[dougunder]

Same here My Chinese BT speaker sounds better then the dedicated polycom conference did for a fraction of cost. Same is true of generic BT headsets vs Plantronics. Only use case is a deskphone too old to do BT which is a rarity vs a softphone anyway. With pjsip it's easy to have multiple endpoints anyhow so you can have softphone, a handset and on your mobile.